These have been days of introspection in the Jewish calendar. The time from Rosh Hashanah to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is meant for self-reflection and growth. Thus, among other things, I have been struggling with the issue of striking Syria.

Last night President Barack Obama made the case for bombing Syria by saying that if we allow a tyrant such as Bashar al-Assad to gas his own people with impunity, we risk having other tyrants and terrorists use chemical weapons, eventually against Americans.

After listening to the president’s case against Assad, I watched Charlie Rose’s hourlong interview with Assad. It is impossible for me to judge the veracity of anything Assad said. Equally, however, we do not have the ability to verify the evidence our own government presents to be a factual assessment of what really went on in Syria on August 21.

Here is what we do know: Assad is a ruthless dictator, who in his own words, is willing to take all measures to win this war. We also know that the U.S. government, as well as intelligence communities around the world, are unreliable. There wasn’t an intelligence service in the world that, prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, did not believe that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. We went to war at a cost of $1.9 trillion in order to ensure that the weapons of mass destruction that Hussein allegedly had were taken from him. We relied heavily on the words of dissident Iraqis such as Rafid Ahmed Alwan Al-Janabi and Ahmed Chalabi, who claimed they had evidence that Hussein possessed these weapons. In the end, however, it has become clear that these Iraqi dissidents played Western governments and influenced them to go to war under false pretenses.

Where is your moral compass pointing? What are your social values? Hark will explore faith, morals, ethics and character at the intersection of religion ethics, culture, politics, media, science, education, economics and philosophy. At times this blog will alert readers to breaking news and trends. At times it will attempt to look more deeply into intriguing subjects. Hark means to listen attentively, and we will, as readers talk back to the news.